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Were They Alive During This?

Were these people alive at the same time as these events?
Inspired by this quiz by Jacktheguy
Quiz by overtired
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Last updated: December 6, 2022
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First submittedOctober 29, 2021
Times taken19,495
Average score73.3%
Rating4.78
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1. Was William Shakespeare alive during the Battle of Hastings?
Yes
No
Battle of Hastings: 1066, Shakespeare: 1564 – 1616
2. Was Richard Nixon alive during the First World War?
Yes
No
Nixon: 1913 –1994, First World War: 1914 – 1918
3. Was Leonardo da Vinci alive when Columbus landed in the Americas?
Yes
No
Leonardo: 1452 – 1519, Columbus landing: 1492
4. Was Adolf Hitler alive when Oscars were first awarded in Hollywood?
Yes
No
Hitler: 1889 –1945, Academy Awards: 1929 (officially used "Oscars" in 1939)
5. Was Julius Caesar alive during the construction of Machu Picchu?
Yes
No
Caesar: 100 – 44 BCE, Machu Picchu: 1450s
6. Was Queen Elizabeth II alive when the Titanic sank?
Yes
No
Titanic sank: 1912, Elizabeth II: 1926 – 2022
7. Was Charles Dickens alive during the American Civil War?
Yes
No
Dickens: 1812 –1870, American Civil War: 1861 – 1865
8. Was Jesus of Nazareth alive when Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii?
Yes
No
Jesus: c. 4 BCE – 30 CE, Pompeii destroyed: 79
9. Was Mahatma Gandhi alive when man landed on the moon?
Yes
No
Gandhi: 1869 –1948, Moonlanding: 1969
10. Was Britney Spears alive when the Berlin Wall fell?
Yes
No
Britney: 1981 – present, Berlin Wall fell: 1989
11. Was Napoleon alive when the Wright brothers first flew an airplane?
Yes
No
Napoleon: 1769 – 1821, First airplane flight: 1903
12. Was John Lennon alive when Hawaii became a US state?
Yes
No
Lennon: 1940 –1980, Hawaii becomes state: 1959
13. Was Chairman Mao alive during the Industrial Revolution?
Yes
No
Industrial Revolution: 1760 – 1840, Chairman Mao: 1893 – 1976
14. Was Martin Luther King Jr. alive when slavery was legal in the US?
Yes
No
MLK: 1929 – 1968, Slavery abolished: 1865
15. Were woolly mammoths alive when the Great Pyramid of Giza was built?
Yes
No
Great Pyramid completed: 2560 BCE, mammoths go extinct: 2000 BCE
+12
Level 79
Oct 31, 2021
Great quiz thank you - could be many more of these!
+5
Level 84
Oct 31, 2021
Glad you liked it. Make sure you also take Jacktheguy's original quiz - Were They Alive at the Same Time?
+1
Level 71
Nov 19, 2022
Nice user name - I learned the word on JP
+4
Level 86
Oct 31, 2021
I agree. Cool idea, jacktheguy!
+2
Level 70
Oct 31, 2021
Great idea
+1
Level 69
Oct 31, 2021
Which Napoleon is this?
+9
Level 86
Oct 31, 2021
Napoleon I, obviously. And Napoleon III was also dead by 1903 anyway.
+13
Level 84
Oct 31, 2021
Actually, Napoleon the pig from Animal Farm. Seriously though, I had it as Napoleon Bonaparte but I try to keep the clues to one line and I figured it wasn't necessary. His Wiki page is simply "Napoleon".
+9
Level 89
Oct 31, 2021
And Napoleon Dynamite hadn't been released yet so he couldn't be an answer either.
+2
Level 89
Oct 31, 2021
Thank you guys for the encouragement, and thank you overtired for making such a great quiz! I was worried that my original quiz was a little too difficult for the front page but I’m glad to see that someone else was able to make it better.
+2
Level 78
Nov 3, 2021
It is still hard, but it is also very tough-provoking and simultaneously enlightening. Great quiz. Credit to you and overtired.
+6
Level 77
Nov 1, 2021
The woolly mammoth one really got me, and apparently over half of users too.
+2
Level 78
Nov 3, 2021
Me too, I had no idea they lasted until so recently. So I just read (some of) the wiki page(s) on Woolly mammoths. Lookee what it says here:

The last known population remained on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until 4,000 years ago, well into the start of human civilization and concurrent with the construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt.

+1
Level 76
Nov 24, 2021
I just read a more recent study about it today and you can scrap the island and take a 100 years off the number. The melting north ("permafrost") reveals more as we speak.
+2
Level 68
Dec 2, 2021
I have heard reports of elderly Alaska Natives some decades back watching African wildlife shows on TV. They did not have much to say but when elephants came on the screen, they had a word for them. Could be the fossils they found from time to time or could be they were around much more recently than generally believed.
+6
Level 74
Dec 2, 2021
How elderley were they?
+1
Level 70
Oct 26, 2023
Cleopatra (born ~69BC) is closer in time to today than she was to the building of the Great Pyramid (~2500BC).
+2
Level 71
Nov 2, 2021
Well, Jesus may as well as have not existed.
+9
Level 84
Nov 8, 2021
???
+3
Level 63
Nov 9, 2021
You could say that about anyone only known from stories. I think Jesus existed, just not in the grand scheme of the bible. I'm sure we all know how word-of-mouth changes after being retold several times.
+9
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
He is not only present in the Bible, but also mentioned by roman historians, Tacitus in particular, IIRC.
+1
Level 83
Jun 27, 2023
Tacitus does mention a man who appears to match the description - a man named Christus who gave his name to the religion and was persecuted under the Romans - but there's not a lot about him and the name 'Jesus' isn't mentioned. Though I guess that's nitpicking.
+1
Level 57
Dec 2, 2021
Great quiz! Got all right except Hitler
+12
Level 73
Dec 2, 2021
The Mao question is a bit unclear. Mao was alive when the Industrial Revolution was finally hitting China. Maybe rephrase it as the “Western Industrial Revolution”
+4
Level 43
Dec 2, 2021
yea mao kinda made his own industrial revolution in china but i understood the question to mean THE industrial revolution
+5
Level 52
Dec 2, 2021
Thought the same thing. Maybe change it to "Start of the Global Industrial Revolution". Of course, the answer then becomes quite obvious.
+1
Level 84
Dec 2, 2021
Or British
+8
Level 71
Dec 2, 2021
When people use the term "Industrial Revolution," they are usually referring to the one that occurred in Europe in the 1800s. I think that clue is fine as is.
+3
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
Agree. Should be rephrased as "Industrial Revolution in Europe"
+5
Level 77
Dec 2, 2021
Jesus is alive now. He rose again from the dead circa 33 AD so was certainly alive in 70 AD.
+3
Level 79
Dec 2, 2021
Pompeii was destroyed in AD 79.
+1
Level 69
Dec 2, 2021
True.
+5
Level 76
Mar 22, 2022
Have you met him to know he's still alive now? Cause it certainly hasn't made the news.

Otherwise, if you're going by the myth of the bible, he ascended to heaven. Unless you think he's alive up there, which causes all kinds of theological-metaphysical problems.

+2
Level 65
Dec 2, 2021
Utterly daft but fun quiz. Thank you.
+6
Level 79
Dec 2, 2021
How is this quiz daft? It's quite informative
+1
Level 79
Dec 2, 2021
Wow, I managed to get all correct!
+1
Level 42
Dec 2, 2021
The most shocking answer was that the Queen wasn't alive during the Titanic.
+5
Level 75
Dec 2, 2021
The Titanic sank in 1912, so if she was alive then, she would be at least 109 years old now.
+1
Level 90
Dec 2, 2021
Somehow read the question as: "Was Britney Spears alive when the Berlin Wall was built." Undercaffeinated quizzing.
+1
Level 50
Dec 2, 2021
14/15 got the Caesar one wrong
+1
Level 59
Dec 2, 2021
Well #8 kinda is a question of faith. Cool Quiz tho
+1
Level 67
Dec 2, 2021
Well yeah, though I always thought he was born in 1 CE and that's why the calendar works that way, BC does mean Before Christ after all
+2
Level 67
Dec 2, 2021
I think the person (Dionysus?) who calculated the years was off by a bit, so the consensus is that Jesus was actually born in 6 or 7 BC.
+1
Level 82
Feb 15, 2024
No faith required. There's no doubt whatsoever, no matter whose calculations you use, that Jesus of Nazareth would have been dead by 79 CE. Unless you mean believing Jesus existed at all requires faith, in which case it takes just as much faith to believe in Julius Caesar.
+1
Level 67
Dec 2, 2021
14, just missed Da Vinci
+1
Level 75
Dec 3, 2021
I've heard of the IR going until like 1910
+1
Level 83
Jul 31, 2022
Brilliant quiz. Possibly my favorite on Jetpunk.
+2
Level 64
Sep 10, 2022
May need to add the qualifier that we're talking about the FIRST Industrial Revolution here. By most definitions the second had also ended by the 1890s, but that is somewhat more debatable, while Mao cértainly wasn't alive during the first.
+1
Level 27
Dec 6, 2022
The description after you answer for 6 needs to be updated. May she rest in peace.
+1
Level 84
Dec 6, 2022
Thanks, updated.
+1
Level 47
Jun 16, 2023
only missed 2, charles dickens and mao